Post news Report RSS The challenge of Adblock

A call to arms for our community - whose support we depend on to grow and prosper.

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Since 2002 ModDB and IndieDB have been helping developers promote their craft to our amazing community of gamers. Today we reach 7.7million people who download over a petabyte of content every month. It has been an amazing journey and more than we ever could have imagined, and we aim to stay online forever.

50%
of our visitors use adblock


However a challenge that all web communities face today, for better or worse is a dependence on advertising. Our aim has always been to show as few, as classy and relevant advertising as we can and we continue to fight that battle. But with adblock penetration exceeding 50% this is a challenging task. For large companies like Google this isn't a problem, because they pay adblock to allow their ads by default. But for us we are left in a tricky place.

Adblock or not we still love yoooou and will always welcome all visitors, but if you don't mind seeing ads every now and then, we ask for your support by whitelisting ModDB.com and IndieDB.com.


If you like the site, we are testing out a subscription system which you can join above. In return you will see no ads for a year, and we offer a warm fuzzy feeling that you are helping us feed the beast (the 15 servers we have pushing out content). We welcome all suggestions so please don't hesitate to share - our aim is to give all game and mod developers a voice free from editors/gatekeepers, as we succeed when we help you succeed.

UPDATE: responding to are our ads safe

So a lot of people in the comments are saying they would like to whitelist us (thanks!) but want to know if our ads are safe, don't play noise or do annoying things. I just want to respond to this by saying we value our community above all else, which is why we work with Gamer Network on all ads. Our policy is to whitelist and only traffic acceptable ads. You should never experience ads which don't comply with these rules, as we want people to love browsing here and for the ads to complement your experience not push you away. We hope more sites follow our lead, so you feel good about whitelisting us and other deserving sites on the internet.

Post comment Comments  (200 - 250 of 885)
legoman2345
legoman2345 - - 1 comments

i would white list moddb but my laptop just cant take ads with out me geting like 1fps or whatever when i move the mouse

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WyvernX2
WyvernX2 - - 16 comments

most of Ads are only sh*t like kill these to earn free money or sh*t like Prizes, free games or whatever never seen Ad that show something about Mods or whatever, and it slows down speed of my net when they are like 8 Ads per page So i keep the AdBlock Enabled :)

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Spike_Zeedil
Spike_Zeedil - - 492 comments

I turned off adblock for this website.. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

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ice_trey
ice_trey - - 1,109 comments

i use ADB and will forever, having said that i whitelist all sites im regged into, incl moddb :)

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Guest
Guest - - 699,855 comments

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Seushimare
Seushimare - - 21 comments

you could always go through whitelisting process in adblock plus IF your ads met the "non-agressive ad" criteria. that would make your site whitelisted by default for those users that don't mind mild advertising (no wild popups and such).

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Guest
Guest - - 699,855 comments

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Templarfreak
Templarfreak - - 6,723 comments

I am completely okay with this idea. I'd like to give a few more reasons other then just the invasiveness as to why people use Adblock, though.

1. Ads can, and often times do, take A LOT of data. Some people DO have a limited amount of data they can use over a given time, and not using Adblock can often-times double the daily usage. Usually the ads that do this are full HD video ads that also have sound.

2. On slower and older systems, like mine, ads can slow the page loading time down and the overall responsiveness of the page down to a noticeable degree and sometimes nearly to a crawl. The ads that usually do this are ones with very active animations and heavy, leaking scripts.

3. Finally, my understanding of ads is that no revenue is even generated unless the ad is clicked. If I have no intention of clicking them, I'm no more helping then if I did use Adblock. If I'm wrong, I'd like someone who knows what's what with ads to correct me.

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Templarfreak
Templarfreak - - 6,723 comments

Delete this comment and the one I'm replying to, please. I was really confused that my original comment wasn't showing up. I guess on this news it was just delayed or something.

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MiWadiAddiction
MiWadiAddiction - - 718 comments

A lot of the ads on Moddb are incredibly invasive. Even when paused or muted they continue to either restart or another very loud and annoying cleaning product ad will replace the muted/paused ad. Always need to check the entire page before checking out the mod I'm checking out. It's very inconvenient.

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Medusa_Zenovka
Medusa_Zenovka - - 1,007 comments

I would like to subscribe, but I have no credit card. So a basic payment via PayPal would be a nice improvement for users like me.

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Guest
Guest - - 699,855 comments

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MrTimm
MrTimm - - 4,994 comments

The reason I have adblock on is for the ads that plays videos and you cant turn them off, yeah I dont mind them really but most of the time they just loop and loop and loop around, so you are forced to use the adblocks. If there is a Ideal payment option then I'll gladly pay 50 Bucks.

PS I like the small changes on moddb.

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Carryall
Carryall - - 14 comments

Adblock or not we still love yoooou and will always welcome all visitors, but if you don't mind seeing ads every now and then, we ask for your support by whitelisting ModDB.com and IndieDB.com.....

at last u turned off my adb for modbb.com

well thats my favorite site why not !

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AJ_Quick
AJ_Quick - - 1,321 comments

Ahhhhh I remember suggesting a subscription features YEARS ago. Chalk up another subscriber Scott!

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TKAzA
TKAzA - - 3,154 comments

Bloody awesome matey! Thank you for 11 years of loyal support Alex <3

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Guest
Guest - - 699,855 comments

Whitelisted this page for asking me to do it in a friendly way instead of insulting me. :)

(I never click ads anyway, so I'm not sure whether it makes any difference.)

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Guest
Guest - - 699,855 comments

I "considered" dissabling Addblock on the site and a second later several Flash, video heavy, loud, horrible banners loaded, started "screaming" and made the page stutter.

PRECISELY a reason why I installed Addblocker in 1st place !

I do understand commercial reality of web hosting, but you have to understand I won't stand for the adds of the crap-level you let on the site. I'd rather stop visiting your site than this.
(One of the adds in question was for some kind Minecraft-themed game.)

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Riva3000
Riva3000 - - 3 comments

I "considered" dissabling Addblock on the site and a second later several Flash, video heavy, loud, horrible banners loaded, started "screaming" and made the page stutter.

PRECISELY a reason why I installed Addblocker in 1st place !

I do understand commercial reality of web hosting, but you have to understand I won't stand for the adds of the crap-level you let on the site. I'd rather stop visiting your site than this.
(One of the adds in question was for some kind Minecraft-themed game.)

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Ericthemookslayer
Ericthemookslayer - - 205 comments

I got adblock because I was so sick of pop up windows and youtube ads every time I opened a new video. I don't mind the ads at the side, but there's no way to toggle the ads that show up.

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Albatros44
Albatros44 - - 136 comments

Whitelisted.

Will subscribe asap.

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SkullDust99
SkullDust99 - - 239 comments

Disabled adblock for you guys!

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Guest
Guest - - 699,855 comments

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EagleBeak
EagleBeak - - 157 comments

I just started using adblock and love it. I'm not sure what 'whitelisting' is but if someone can help me figure it out, I'd love to help this site.

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Rhindon
Rhindon - - 3 comments

Basically giving the website a free pass past adblockers.

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Rhindon
Rhindon - - 3 comments

I'll be happy to whitelist IndieDb. I want to help however I can.

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takezodunmer2005
takezodunmer2005 - - 18 comments

LOL, had to go down my list of ad blockers/anti trackers, but yeah, you guys have been WL'd!

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Seargent1
Seargent1 - - 16 comments

I remember one year in particular it was nothing but B-movie horror ads on this site, never looked back after that

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Guest
Guest - - 699,855 comments

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Guest
Guest - - 699,855 comments

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strudo76
strudo76 - - 1 comments

Hey there. Bit late to the party on this it seems. I'm not really interested in a subscription, as I'm not a big mod user and visit here rarely.

I don't like big ads that use lots of bandwidth, as I'm in a bandwidth limited area, so it slows the site loading. Since I see the "whitelist us" message on lots of sites, I have a question.

Does this site generate revenue just by having the ads displayed, or do I actually need to click them? I'd whitelist if it helped without a click, but I'm 99% sure that I'm not going to click on an ad on a website, except by accident. I very rarely see anything that I'm interested in, especially if it involves clicking a link. If I happened across something that I find interesting, I'd be more inclined to Google search for the item or topic, rather than click a link I know nothing about.

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Username1274
Username1274 - - 2 comments

I love the smell of an ad free website (I had to say that)

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gogolino
gogolino - - 244 comments

In the morning. Nothing else in the world smells like that ;)

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gogolino
gogolino - - 244 comments

I've turned off Adblock on IndieDB and ModDB some time ago. Since then i never had problems with adds, invasive or not. In fact, i haven't seen any. About being tracked: firefox extension called Blur is doing its job perfectly :)

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xxdarthvader14xx
xxdarthvader14xx - - 24 comments

I just disabled ad block for this domain. :)

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Gleb_AA-Gun Online
Gleb_AA-Gun - - 1,003 comments

I like how I disabled ABP on the site and now only 1 ad shows up and the other squares are all black. XD

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Gleb_AA-Gun Online
Gleb_AA-Gun - - 1,003 comments

Is there any way to make ads only show stuff of the persons interest?

Example: I don't want to see ads about random products, but I'm fine with seeing ads from Bad Dragon, or it could be useful and even show NEWS from sites such as by example, Halummu.

That would probably make people more okay with Ads, if they are REALLY related to such people, or that people are good with having. :)

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Førseti
Førseti - - 7 comments

I have white-listed you but I really dislike taboola ad's, so nope, turned it back on again. I occasionally white-list again just to see if there' any change though.

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Guest
Guest - - 699,855 comments

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Slornie
Slornie - - 302 comments

So today I saw your Please whitelist us banner at the top of a page I was viewing and thought "didn't I whitelist ModDB already?" and had to go see why not. I paused my adblocker to check what ModDB looks like with ads..

The discrete advert blocks above, beside and beneath content blocks I'm fine with, but not the full-page background adverts that also hyperlink the entire background. That's a deal breaker right there.

I'm afraid that as long as you continue to use such blatant and in-your-face full-page background adverts my adblocker is staying turned on, much as I would like to support ModDB as a website and resource.

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JinBitsu
JinBitsu - - 55 comments

You guys are cool and I love this website, whitelisted.

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Noobkiller2
Noobkiller2 - - 1,140 comments

Can you please add Webmoney support? Thanks :)

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AfroDemon562
AfroDemon562 - - 23 comments

There is a campaign to ban the annoying part of ads and allow trusted & safe ads. But i'm sorry but i can't whitelist you. But i still love ModDB.

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Vasikle
Vasikle - - 772 comments

Well i dont like beacouse sometimes there are some porny-sexy adds that i personnaly hate

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StrangerDanger
StrangerDanger - - 7 comments

I have indiedb.com whitelisted but I still see the banner asking me to whitelist you.

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cire992
cire992 - - 3 comments

The ad blocker wins because it exists. Is this the hill you guys are gonna die on? Because I'm not sure how far asking politely is going to go towards paying the bills.

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sabin1981
sabin1981 - - 36 comments

No flashing graphics, no sounds. Whitelisted :)

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Bartus2009
Bartus2009 - - 4 comments

;C

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hahadead7777
hahadead7777 - - 12 comments

XD I just turned off my adblock for this website and the first ad I see is an ad for adblock. That is just awesome.

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